This Week In The Laboratories Of Democracy

Welcome back to our weekly survey of what's goin' down in the several states where, as we know, the real work of governmentin' gets done, and where the seventh mother was with the second son and they were both out on Highway 61.

It's been a while since we checked in with Governor Goodhair, who has returned to his day job of screwing up one of the largest states in the Union, which may or may not be a temporary distinction. Anyway, having made an epic faceplant out of his presidential campaign, Goodhair has gone home to make sure that there will be some ludicrously unconstitutional consequences for Texas ladies who use their ladyparts in ways that Goodhair finds icky-sticky. He is basing this, I believe, on some Jeebus-science someone read to him at bedtime.

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Seven states - Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska and Oklahoma - have put laws into effect in the past several years banning late term abortions, based on questionable medical research suggesting that a fetus feels pain starting at 20 weeks of gestation. Another state, Georgia, has such a law scheduled to go into effect in January, although a lawsuit over the measure is pending in state court. Arizona also passed a similar law banning abortions 18 weeks after fertilization, but it has been blocked by federal courts. Texas would be the largest state to pass such a measure, although Perry, a Republican, did not outline details of what he envisioned in a bill. "We cannot, and we will not, stand idly by while the unborn are going through the agony of having their lives ended," Perry, a failed 2012 Republican presidential candidate, said in prepared remarks for a news conference on Tuesday.

Speaking of unintended consequences which, under its succession of incompetent Republican governors, Texas has begun to breed like it breeds angry lizards, here's something that is remarkably unsurprising.

When state lawmakers passed a two-year budget in 2011 that moved $73 million from family planning services to other programs, the goal was largely political: halt the flow of taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood clinics. Now they are facing the policy implications - and, in some cases, reconsidering. The latest Health and Human Services Commission projections being circulated among Texas lawmakers indicate that during the 2014-15 biennium, poor women will deliver an estimated 23,760 more babies than they would have, as a result of their reduced access to state-subsidized birth control. The additional cost to taxpayers is expected to be as much as $273 million - $103 million to $108 million to the state's general revenue budget alone - and the bulk of it is the cost of caring for those infants under Medicaid.

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"Reconsidering," my Aunt Fannie, by the way. Seagoville will freeze over before we see a debate in which a bipartisan coalition in the Texas lege forms around the issue of re-funding Planned Parenthood. It's been an awfully long time since I've heard mushy faith-based liberals make the "common ground" argument on these issues. Maybe we're getting smarter. Anyway, the courts in Oklahoma seem to be.

Oklahoma laws requiring women seeking abortions to have an ultrasound image placed in front of them while they hear a description of the fetus and that ban off-label use of certain abortion-inducing drugs are unconstitutional, the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday. The state's highest court determined that lower court judges were right to halt the laws. In separate decisions, the Oklahoma Supreme Court said the laws, which received wide bipartisan support in the Legislature, violated a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court case. The Oklahoma court said it has a duty to "follow the mandate of the United State Supreme Court on matters of federal constitutional law."

Unpossible! Where do you possibly get an idea like that? One more group of judges who won't be getting that Scalia family Christmas card this year.

Let's load up the sleigh —OK, Rudolph, full power!— and dash away, dash away, dash away all to Cincinnati, where the operation of the local government has become somewhat hamstrung by the number of (alleged) crooks that are employed by it.

The Dec. 10 council meeting was also Phil Trzop's first meeting as mayor. Since being sworn in last month, Trzop was arrested on a charge of alleged abuse of public trust in relation to his role as the general manager of the Boone County Water District. If convicted of the felony, Trzop could face five to 10 years in the state penitentiary and would be barred from holding political office. Trzop has pleaded not guilty to the charge. With Trzop leading the meeting, several residents were on hand and voiced their support for Trzop.

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Can I say that I have been working in this business for nigh on 40 years now and I never have been blessed with the opportunity to write a headline like, "Jail Sentence Delays Oath Of Office," and that I am all the lesser for it? Thank you.

Moving further north, let it never be said that Vermont produces nothing but sensible progressive pols. The Ben And Jerry's state has more than a few cracked eccentrics hiding amid the pine trees and Birkenstocks.

Clearly, says Maslack, Vermonters have a constitutional obligation to arm themselves, so that they are capable of responding to "any situation that may arise."

God, no. New Hampshire would be building nukes within a week.

(Brother Maslack, who tried this gambit a few years ago, too, is at least more consistent in his libertarianism than most people. Fifteen years ago, he was campaigning for legal dope. Right on, my brother. Can I put my hands down now?)

Since it's getting a little cold, let's fly away like the down from a thistle down to Florida, where Governor Bat Boy's mad personnel skillz continue to amaze and astound.

This week, the man Governor Rick Scott selected as his so-called "Jobs Czar" resigned over revelations that the former banker violated state law while collecting unemployment benefits. Hunting Deutsch was Executive Vice President of Wealth Management at BankUnited until it was taken over by feds in May of 2009. Deutsch reportedly drew some $25,000 in unemployment benefits over the nearly two-year period between his stint with the failed bank and his appointment by Scott, all while seemingly skirting eligibility requirements.

Of course, brother Deutsch isn't like those moochers and takers who are plaguing the rest of us with their mooching and taking and sickosity and poverty-ism.

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"At the end of the day, I'm fortunate enough where I've worked for very successful companies for a long period of time and luckily sold all my bank stocks - most of them at the right time, at the right price - and quite frankly, didn't have to work," Deutsch told the Tallahassee-based publication. "So my wife and I took time off and traveled a good bit; we were in Europe several times." The ex-banker also reportedly has homes with a combined value of more than $1 million in Miami and Santa Rosa Beach, in California. Questions are being raised as to whether the man who ran Florida's Department of Economic Opportunity may have committed fraud, a third-degree felony, in cashing in on the benefits, while failing to comply with requirements.

I would have paid money to listen to this guy talk to the nice, underpaid lady at the unemployment office.

Unemployment Lady: "Have you been looking for work?"

Deutsch: "Not really. I've been travelling in Europe when I wasn't living off my stock options in my second home out in California."

Unemployment Lady: "Can you excuse me for a moment? I have to stick my head in the microwave for just a couple of seconds."

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